Down the Memory Lane – Neeta Lulla on Jodha Akbar Look

Have you seen Jodha Akbar? The movie of Ashutosh Gowarikar and not the serial aired on Zee TV Network. Yes? Then you must have definitely noticed the royal grandeur of the sets and the costumes in the movie. Keep aside the set designing part; we are here to talk about the costume designing of the movie.

Dressing up the celebs is a cinch for ace fashion designer, Neeta Lulla. She is ruling our film industry for about two decades designing attires for Sridevi, Juhi Chawla, Madhuri, Priyanka Chopra, Aishwarya and even Hrithik Roshan, Shah Rukh Khan. She got National Award for her designs in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas as well.

Her assignment of designing for the Ashutosh Gowarikar’s epic love story, Jodhaa Akbar was another unique work for her. Let us give you an elaborate picture of her work in this movie.

According to her working on Jodha Akbar was one of the most challenging films she has ever done in about last 20 years of her career, though she has done other periodic films such as Kisna, Devdas and even a Hollywood film, One Night with the King.

Amongst many one of the causes for this was that this was her first designing of costumes for the entire cast of the movie. Even the commoner walking on the road in the scenes of the movie wore the dress designed by the designer. If you

What made it easier for her was that every detail was very well researched. Even then, she worked on this project for a year and half because there was very little information available about the costumes and jewellery worn during that period. And thus information gathering was a bit tough for her.

As the Mughal era was known for its pomposity, they used a lot of warm tones with being careful not to go overboard. The costumes and accessories were quite heavy but the actors took it in their pace. The accessories were made of precious elements such as gold, cut diamond, ruby, kundan and jade.

The designer had a great rapport with the lead actress of the movie, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as she had been working with her for the last one decade and knew her likes and dislikes. Her most ornate attire for the actress in the movie was the red bridal attire.

The designing team got the fabrics for all the costumes from Rajasthan especially from Jaipur, Delhi and Mumbai. They used a lot woven fabrics and different textures such as cotton, silk and brocades. A lot of stones, zardozi and kundan embedded in the embroidery were used in addition to gotta work done on some of the costumes. For shoes, they got authentic embroidered mojris from Rajasthan.

So this was the story behind the costume designing of Jodha Akbar by Neeta Lulla. Would you like to share your suggestion with us? Please do. And stay stylish till we meet in the next post!!!